As Florida's ban on "lab-grown” meat is set to go into effect next week, one manufacturer hosted a last hurrah - at least for now - with a cultivated meat-tasting party in Miami.
California-based Upside Foods hosted dozens of guests Thursday evening at a rooftop reception in the city's Wynwood neighborhood, known for its street art, breweries, nightclubs and trendy restaurants.
“It's like eating chicken breast,” said Nidal Barake, an event attendee, immediately after biting into the cultivated chicken dish on offer.
“If you tell me it's cultivated chicken or real chicken, I wouldn't tell the difference,” he added.
The U.S. approved the sale of what's now being called “cell-cultivated” or “cell-cultured” meat for the first time in June 2023, allowing Upside Foods and another California company, Good Meat, to sell cultivated chicken.
Earlier this year, both Florida and Alabama banned the sale of cultivated meat and seafood, which is grown from animal cells. Other states and federal lawmakers are also looking to restrict it, arguing the product could hurt farmers and pose a safety risk to the public.
Cultivated products are grown in steel tanks using cells from a living animal, a fertilized egg or a storage bank. The cells are fed with special blends of water, sugar, fats and vitamins. Once they’ve grown, they’re formed into cutlets, nuggets and other shapes.
Chef Mika Leon, owner of Caja Caliente in Coral Gables, prepared the cultivated chicken for Thursday's event, which invited members of the South Florida public to get their first - and possibly last - taste of cultivated meat before Florida's ban begins Monday. Leon served chicken tostadas with avocado, chipotle crema and beet sprouts.
"When you cook it, it sizzles and cooks just like chicken, which was insane," Leon said. “And then when you go to eat it, it’s juicy.”
Reception guest Alexa Arteaga said she could imagine cultivated meat being a more ethical alternative.
“The texture itself is a little bit different, but the taste was really, really good,” Arteaga said. “Like way better than I was expecting.”
Another guest, Skyler Myers, said he didn’t understand why the meat would soon be banned in Florida.
"I think we should be allowed to eat what we choose to eat,” he said.
“I mean, Florida is all about free market and choice and personal choice and everything, personal liberties. Why can't eat what we wanna eat?
Besides the ethical issues surrounding the killing of animals, Upside Foods CEO and founder Uma Valeti said cultivated meat avoids many of the health and environmental problems created by the meat industry, such as deforestation, pollution and the spread of disease. He also pointed out that the meat his company produces is not coming from a lab but from a facility that more closely resembles a brewery or a dairy processing plant.
“Because there's a ban going into effect on cultivated meat from July 1 in Florida, we thought, why not give Floridians a chance, their first chance, and maybe the last chance in a while to taste, real delicious cultivated chicken,” he said.
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